Top Five Lifts for BJJ
I was walking home one night when a van pulled up beside me. Three armed, ski-masked thugs wearing gi’s grabbed me, put a bag over my head, and brought me to some dirty basement. One of the them tore the bag off my head. Before my eyes even had time to adjust to the light from the single bulb hanging from the ceiling, one of the thugs put a gun to my head and asked me, “If somebody wanted to build a solid base of strength for jiu jitsu, what five lifts would you recommend he or she do?” Now, he could have just sent me an e-mail or a message through social media, but some people like to do things their own way. So, to answer this deranged jiu jitsu practitioner’s question and save my own skin, here are the five lifts I told him.
Rows, all kinds. Developing your upper back is extremely important. If you’re going to get an armbar, sink a rear naked choke, or resist having somebody putting an americana on you, your upper back had better be strong. You’ll have noticed that I wasn’t specific about which rows you should do. That’s because you’ll be pulling from all kinds of angles and grips in jiu jitsu, so it makes sense to vary the angles and grips in your rowing. Using ropes, regular handles, dumbbells, baseball grips, etc. are all helpful in adding variety while still staying specific enough to get really strong. The focus is to add weight over time in a given variation, then switch it after about eight weeks.
When doing rows, people often tend to do them as if they’re starting a lawnmower. You know what I mean: tons of flailing, pulling with the hand, and doing quarter reps. It’s best to use a full range of motion, letting the arm fully extend and the upper back stretch, and thinking about pulling with the elbow instead of the hand. This last point especially keeps the focus on the upper back instead of the arms. Your biceps can pull nowhere near as much weight as your back, so let’s keep the focus where it belongs.
Glute Ham Raise. Hamstrings are without a doubt one of the most important yet neglected muscle groups in an athlete’s body. This is probably because you can’t see them in the mirror and people don’t get all hot and bothered when they see a nice set of them. What a sad world. BJJ people use them for keeping guard closed, setting up triangles, finishing armbars, and executing take-downs. In other words, if your hamstrings are weak, you’re missing out on a lot of potential. “But Eric, you witty yet extremely relatable wordsmith, why this obscure exercise? Surely there’s something I can easily find on instagram that you’d have me do.” Because, dear reader, it demands that you use the hamstring to bend the knee and keep the hip extended at the same time, something that almost no other exercise makes you do. Crank out a set of ten of these and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
When you do these, make sure that you’re controlling the descent. This doesn’t mean you have to move at a glacial pace, just don’t fall or flail. Don’t bounce out of the bottom. Lastly, keep your hips almost locked. A soft bend in the hips is fine, but you don’t want to bend them like you’re bowing in at the start of class.
Sumo Deadlift. OK, all that isolation work is nice, but how about something that builds overall lower body strength? Well, it’s hard to do better than deadlifts. And sumo deadlifts are the way to go in my opinion. I went in depth on why I think sumo deadlifting is great here, so I won’t flog a deceased equine. The other reasons for going sumo are that it’s easier on the low back than conventional deadlifts and it closely mimics the forward pressure you’d put in side control.
When you do them, the important part is that you keep your back straight, your chest up, and use your hips to lift the weight. Keep the bar so close to you that it brushes your legs the whole way up. Notice I said “brushes” and not “tears the skin off of.” At the top be sure to clench your butt cheeks like you’re trying to crack an egg with them. You might wonder whether you should bounce the weight off the floor on the next rep or let it come to a full stop. I recommend coming to a full stop. This is so you can reset and get tight for the next rep, sparing your spine and being able to use maximal force at the same time.
Close Grip Bench Press. Sumo deadlifts are for overall lower body strength, but what about the upper body? Well, I’ve chosen an upper body lift and it isn’t the bench press. Before you pick up your torch or pitchfork, hear me out. The close grip bench press beats out the others because it still allows you to use a ton of weight, but also mimics the more tucked in arms that you’ll have when framing and making space. True, you’d be able to push more weight with your arms out wide on the bar, but in jiu jitsu one of the cardinal rules is to keep your elbows tucked. On top of that, most of the time when you push in jiu jitsu you’re using more triceps than anything else. Close grip bench has been a staple among powerlifters for building strong triceps, and now it’ll help you build a better frame.
Again, the biggest difference between the close grip and regular bench press is the width of the grip (duh.) But how close is close enough? I’ve seen people throw out numbers like 15 inches apart, but humans come in all kinds of arm length and torso width/thicknesses. A better measure would be have your hands to be as close as you can get them while still being able to keep your shoulder blades pinched together when the bar touches your chest. For most people, this would be, with arms fully extended, having the thumb just outside of in line with the armpit. From there, it’s like a normal bench press. Upper back arched, shoulders pinched together, row the bar to your chest, push yourself away from the bar, lock the elbows at the top.
Neck Work. This is a pretty broad category, but it breaks down to strengthening the muscles in your neck. If your neck is weak, get ready to get it cranked or get your head manhandled. Building up the neck muscles will make sure that it’s strong enough to buy you time to get out of a choke or prevent it from getting cranked.
The important thing about doing neck work is to not go too heavy if you’re new to it. If you do, you’ll pay for it dearly. Start very light and build up the sets and reps, then start adding weight. Use a full range of motion. If you’ve got a four way neck machine, use it often. And let me know where it is because I’m dying to use one. If you don’t, using a small plate and doing flexion (pulling your chin to your chest) and extension (pulling the back of your head toward your shoulder blades) is a great start. Start with a light weight and work up to two to three sets of 15 to 30 for each direction. This is the place to chase the pump. Over time slowly add weight. There’s no gold medal for max neck flexion weight, so leave your ego at the door.
These are my top five for building and maintaining basic strength for jiu jitsu. Yes, there are plenty of other exercises you can do, but these have the highest carry-over and bang for buck that I’ve seen. Once you’ve got this in order, then we can talk about maybe adding something or getting fancier. Just like you wouldn’t start with flying armbars as a white belt, you wouldn’t start with fancy stuff in the weight room. Keep it simple and effective. And, to those who are very understandably concerned about my welfare, the thugs thanked me and brought me back, stopping for Dunkin Donuts on the way. Two of them were one stripe white belts and the other had two stripes, in case you were wondering.
